You are terrible if you are an average speaker. All your coworkers with mediocre presentation abilities do the same. See why this is the case.
The Cookie Police and Cookies
Consider that you are making cookies. You scoop some dough with your fingers, form it into a ball, and place it on the cookie sheet after thoroughly combining it. You can fill an entire oven with cookies by repeating this process fifty times. If you do these five hundred times, you will have enough cookies to fill a freezer or enough for a bake sale.
Imagine that the Homemade Cookie Police were looking into you. They gently lift each cookie after you place it on the baking sheet and weigh it. They note the weight for every one of the five hundred cookies. When they are done, they make a chart (for their PowerPoint presentation back at Headquarters).
With or without a few tenths of a gram, many of the cookies would weigh very the average amount.
Cookies in modest quantities would either be extremely small or extremely enormous.
Many of the cookies would be great, while the exceedingly small ones would burn in the oven and the very huge ones might be uncooked.
The Bell Curve and Humans
The cookie weight/frequency chart’s results surprised no one, so why? since you are a human!
The chart’s shape, which resembles the Bell Curve, could be familiar to you. (You may be familiar with it by another name, such as a normal distribution.) The most exciting aspect of it, though, may be that if you take any variable into account in a big population, the histogram (the chart of values versus the count) tends to follow the Bell Curve.
Because you are not a robot, the weight in the case of cookies is a variable.
Take adult heights yet another illustration. Men in North America are typically 69 12 inches tall. (The average female North American is 64 12 Professional golfers are extremely skilled, yet there are few of them.
Some individuals hardly ever hit it (they are too frail or just too clumsy to swing a club). These people are also scarce in number.
Most of us fall somewhere in the middle. We hardly have the skill to keep from hurting ourselves.
We would like to be able to hit the ball at a professional level when it comes to golf, but it is acceptable to be ordinary. Being mediocre is OK for golf; being average is mediocre. Given that most of us have never taken golf lessons, it makes sense. Your proficiency with a golf club is only occasionally (or never) employed, and your career performance is not influenced by it.
Speaking in public and the Bell Curve
Though measuring presentation skills is more difficult, imagine for a second that you could. (The maximum amount of time you can talk without making anybody bored. The percentage of listeners who are inspired to act by your call to action.
On the high end, you have Steve Jobs, Martin Luther King, and Winston Churchill.
Hermits and those who are completely incapable of communication make up the lower end.
The bulk of those in the center have mediocre presentation skills. Is this decent? Or is this bad? Male adults typically measure between 69 and 69 1/2 inches in height, sometimes slightly more or less.
Naturally, there are some extremely tall persons as well as extremely small people. But comparatively speaking, there are not as many of them.
Being average in height is preferable. It is preferred. All things are made for you, including vehicles, clothes, and airplane seats. Extreme shortness or extreme height might result in physical challenges throughout life.
Consider golf as another example and let us look at how well players can hit the golf ball.
You can be a terrible speaker and still be an average one, statistically speaking. All your coworkers are. This is the PowerPoint Death Pit. The zone for filler words is fifteen per minute. What is this speaker talking about? territory.
Presentation abilities require practice.
Chocolate chips will not make up for your ordinary speaking ability. Your audience sits through a lifetime of meetings, wishing they were someplace else as they listen to mediocre presenters.
Presentation abilities differ from height.
The world is not set up for mediocre speakers to do well. If your ability to communicate your thoughts is ordinary, people will not come to your defense.
Like golf, presentation skills are not a sport.
Being mediocre is not acceptable. Your communication abilities are crucial!
You Can't Be Average If You Want to Speak Well
Why are most speakers so awful? Like golf, most people worldwide never attend any formal communications instruction or pursue any informal training.
Everybody pays the price. Consider the last fifty presentations you saw. How many captivated your attention throughout? Ten? Five? not more than five?
The small percentage of people who work hard to develop their skills—like you, if you are reading this—has a significant edge. Your communication abilities will improve if they are not already. Additionally, having exceptional communication skills will benefit you in life.
Your views are heard and understood. You are a natural at interviews. People view you as a leader. The good news is that, with commitment, effort, and time, anyone can develop their skills. Check out Six Minutes.
Read additional blogs about speaking. Consult books about communication. Attend a Toastmasters meeting. Whenever you can, offer to talk. Practice. Practice. Practice.
